In the last few months, my PL club coordinated an intensive distribution of flyers in our area. We distributed approximately 300 to 400 CHALLENGE flyers daily. The flyers dealt with education reform, energy reform and the attacks against teachers here in Mexico. The main idea was to inform parents and elementary, middle, high school and college students that the purpose of the new reforms wasn’t to help and improve workers’ conditions but to benefit a few capitalists. The smear campaigns and many attacks against the teachers show how the capitalists try to keep people from fighting against the system, and reforms or laws that only benefit them.
We had daily distribution of flyers, and people at the majority of schools took them and shared with us comments or situations about what they were then going through. Only in two of the schools did we meet youth and people in general who were unwilling to take flyers; some threw them away, and crumpled them up. That experience momentarily made me sad and discouraged. I wondered “how useful is this?”
But when other people stopped, came back to talk about their issues and agreed with the flyer’s arguments, and discussed how we’re all affected by the daily bombardment of the newspapers and news, I understood that what the Party is doing is useful. I realized I have a lot to study to learn PLP’s ideas, so that when someone takes an attitude like that, I could approach them and try to encourage them to read it, and if they disagree to talk about it or share it with their group.
Currently, we’re meeting every Saturday to study with a new comrade who’s doing her medical internship, and has participated in some of our flyer distributions and went to a communist school on racism. We’re getting ready to start another school where we can invite people who live close by, friends and folks who know the Party; we’ll discuss Road to Revolution III.
We’re planning to continue the flyer distributions once a month. We’re also organizing a CHALLENGE distribution network for the people we’ve been talking to, or have been meeting with, or friends we want to invite to get to know the Party.
Personally, I want to organize my schedule better to make time to study the documents I haven’t read yet or those I don’t understand. I want to begin talking to friends, family and acquaintances about the Party, and to invite them to meet comrades and practice with them to lose my fear about talking to people.
I’m committed to becoming more responsible and dedicated to achieving a better understanding of the Party’s ideas and to recruiting many people to fight for the working class, for communism and to destroy capitalism.
A Red Youth
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I am a medical student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). I met the Progressive Labor Party in May through a friend who invited me to discuss PLP ideas. The first document I read in the club was Road to Revolution IV (RRIV). I liked the ideas of that small pamphlet. When I heard that the Party fought for communism, although I didn’t entirely understand it, I knew that was something good. Fight for class equality? That seemed like a good idea. A red army of workers and students, armed struggle to take power from capitalists? That is excellent!
This is the first time I am writing to CHALLENGE. We’ve read several documents, but I liked RR IV the best, and Jailbreak has been hard to understand, you know, because of Dialectical Materialism [the philosophy of science and nature used to advance our communist theory and practice]. I thought the struggle against sexism was very important. I learned many interesting things, including that it’s a form of racism that allows the bosses to increase their profits, that as a woman it’s harder to get a job, that I could get fired for getting pregnant, that we get lower salaries and fewer rights and that part of “women’s work,” such as domestic work, is unpaid and increases the bosses’ profits.
These study groups have taught me many things. Some I haven’t understood, but I’m convinced that the capitalist system doesn’t work for anybody. I’m also convinced that I have to study much more. From the beginning I was willing to change my capitalist ideology for a communist ideology, and I’m very happy with that!
I’ve been part of a communist school where we discussed racism. Most significant was the participation of many people who described their experiences with racism, how we are all affected, how it’s present all the time, everywhere. This time I didn’t talk because I didn’t feel ready, but I heard the disappointment expressed by my comrades — which is what I call them now. I believed that because they worked the fields or were workers, they wouldn’t understand the complexity of this topic. I was wrong. They are people who are very conscious of our conditions under this system.
I’ve also been involved in flyer distribution at several schools and universities with my PL club. In some there was a lot of participation and acceptance of people; in others that wasn’t the case. I must admit that at my medical school people have refused to take the flyers. My classmates have big expectations of personal success. They’ve bought the capitalist idea that personal success is synonymous with a better life. But I’ll persevere. I know that our Party has members in the medical field; they should write more often in CHALLENGE to show that even in the U.S. doctors struggle and suffer under capitalism.
Our next project is a communist school on Road to Revolution III. I got assigned to cover the Paris Commune. Wish me luck.
PLP student